Tech insights

  Note : The demo uses layer 3 for better key visualization while using Devanagari.                The PS/2 interface presents two physical layers, switched on if the input scancode is one or two bytes. This second "escaped" layer is typically generated for keys like `Home' and `Ins'. Kbdfs additionally maintains eight more virtual layers that are switched on `Shift', `Ctl', `AltGr', and `Mod4' modifier key state. Not all permutations of these modifiers are represented as layers, the exhaustive list is as follows: none Key shift Shift + Key esc Escaped Key altgr AltGr + Key ctl Ctl + Key ctlesc Ctl + Escaped Key shiftesc Shift + Escaped Key shiftaltgr Shift + AltGr + Key mod4 Mod4 + Key altgr...

  Noto Emoji Font Note:  Noto Color emoji needs Color Bitmap Data (CBDT) or COLR/CPAL support.   Four independent bugs, spanning truetypefs.c , hint.c , and head.c : 1. assert(gs[i] != nil) crash in compilesub ( truetypefs.c ) ttffindchar returning glyph 0 for a rune inside a declared cmap segment (a genuine gap, not just the NUL special-case) skipped the retry-via-notdef path entirely. If the font's own .notdef then also failed to rasterize, the assert took the whole fileserver down. Fixed by replacing the assert with a synthesized blank placeholder as the last resort in the fallback chain. 2. No bounds checking on glyph geometry before blit() ( truetypefs.c ) blit() has zero validation of its own; compilesub sized the destination strip from the font's declared ascentpx + descentpx but never checked that an individual glyph's actual rendered width/height/vertical position fit inside that buffer. A decorative font ( architectsdaughter ) reporting ink extents...

  Plan 9 is an Operating System (OS) from Bell Labs which is a successor to UNIX. It builds on the learnings from the previous Operating systems. Network computing and graphics is an integral part of the OS rather than an afterthought. It is modular and portable - it comes with a cross compiler . It is available, under MIT License , which anybody can use, learn and tweak. Features Everything is a file. Small Kernel:  Around 5MB size which can be built in under 2 minutes.  Singular Grid: All the computers running Plan 9 OS and connected together act like a singular grid. So there's no need for remote access solutions like VNC or RDP. This cool video shows a small glimpse of the possibilities. Process Isolation: Processes run within their own namespaces and are isolated from each other. So you can run rio (the window manager) within rio. Applications like Browsers don't need complicated sandboxing. And a crashing program is unlikely to bring down the OS. No DLL Hell : ...

Faux bold and italic using Freetype API   Modern Outline fonts (Truetype and Opentype) have a separate file for each weight and style for better readability. They are usually suffixed as normal, Bold, Italic and Bold-Italic. This means that one cannot render these variants if the font files are missing. From the end user perspective this is annoying at times. Following APIs can be used to generate faux bold and italic variants.   Freetype API   cairo_ft_font_face_set_synthesize (font_face, CAIRO_FT_SYNTHESIZE_BOLD                      | CAIRO_FT_SYNTHESIZE_OBLIQUE);   Cairo transformation API Use x-stretch transformation for bold and skew transformation for italic. cairo_matrix_t font_matrix;   font_matrix.xx *= 1.5; // Bold - stretch font_matrix.xy = -5;     // Italic - skew   Harfbuzz API This didn't work for me.  hb_font_set_synthetic_slant(fon...